Day 2- Ellington Field and NBL Tour

Our second day at NASA was split between Ellington Field and the Sonny Carter Training Facility. The flyers left early to undergo physiological training while us as ground crew went to Ellington Field to continue setup and testing. Out at the hanger we worked to shield the remaining unit cell wires to hopefully reduce some of the noise in the system we'd been seeing. We also ran several tests of the full system with the new updated code. Not everything is working fully yet, however we should be able to fix our issues over the weekend.

In the afternoon we headed over to the Sonny Carter Training Facility to meet up with the flyers and attend a tour of the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.

Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (Hyperbaric chamber below)

The NBL is where the astronauts train for their EVA's (spacewalks). The pool is 202' x 102' x 40' which is the largest pool in the world. The Russians have a similar tank, however it's still a bit small. The tank is able to hold several different models of the ISS, shuttle or other spacecraft for astronauts to train on. The NBL simulates the zero-g environment and is the only other means than the "vomit comet" to train for this environment.

NBL

We were very lucky to get to see them taking two of the astronauts (one of which was Sandra Magnus) who had been training out of the pool.

Astronaut being pulled out of the NBL

These astronauts were training for the next ISS mission soon to go up. For every hour of EVA that they have on the ISS, the astronauts must train 4-6 hours in the NBL. The shuttle EVAs require 6-8 hours of training per EVA hour since their EVAs are usually more involved.

Our group was very fortunate to even be let in for a tour that day since normally no one is allowed in when astronauts are training. When we arrived, they were just pulling the astronauts towards the surface where they hooked them both into a large crane and raised it to the surface.

People on the deck had to help them get out of their spacesuits and stripped down to just the inner portion of the suit. We actually got to see the whole process!

Sandra Magnus being de-suited

The suits are not custom fitted, but the astronauts can use various parts of 8 full suits. After 40 hours in the pool the suits all have to be stripped down and re-certified for use. There are four support divers per astronaut during training. One diver is there to assist the astronauts if they drop a tool or something to that effect. There is one diver who films everything that is going on, and then two safety divers. The support divers must go through extensive training before they are able to work in this job. Only on occasion are there guest divers allowed in the tank. These people are only allowed in if they are an engineer or other personnel helping to ensure the astronauts learn how to operate their device properly.

After our tour we went back to the hotel and waited for the flyers to finish their physiological training. Everyone was given the rest of the night off to get rested up and do what they wanted. Integrated Systems Testing and ground tests will start this weekend.